World

In this photo released by Tasnim News Agency, the wreckage of a car is seen after a suicide car bombing at the gate of a police headquarters in the southeastern Iranian port city of Chabahar, Thursday, Dec. 6, 2018.

A suicide car bomber struck a police headquarters in the Iranian port city of Chabahar on Thursday, killing at least two policemen and wounding 42 people, state TV reported. A little-known Sunni jihadist group claimed responsibility for the attack, which Iran's foreign minister accused of being "foreign-backed."

The bomber drove his vehicle, loaded with explosives, up to the police headquarters, provincial official Rahmdel Bameri told state TV. He said police officers blocked the vehicle and started firing at the driver, who then detonated the explosives.

State TV also aired footage of smoke rising over the city. The television report said two police officers were killed, lowering an earlier death toll of three without explanation.

Mohammad Mehran Aminifar, head of Medical Sciences University in Zahedan, the capital of southeastern Sistan and Baluchistan province, told state TV that 42 people were wounded, including four kids and a pregnant woman. Ten of the wounded were members of the police force, he said.

In a communique, the Sunni jihadist group Ansar al-Furqan claimed responsibility for the attack, according to the Washington-based SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors extremist activity online.

Iran Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif condemned the attack and warned "terrorists" that they will be punished. "Iran will bring terrorists and their masters to justice," he said on his Twitter account.